The issue of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) is well known within and outside the healthcare community. To date, many studies have been conducted in an effort to ascertain effective ways to reduce the occurrence of HAIs, and the clear majority finds a thorough cleansing of one's hands upon entering and exiting a patient's room as the single most effective way to prevent the spread of HAIs. As a result, in an attempt to improve patient care, many hospitals have installed HHC systems to monitor healthcare workers' compliance with hand hygiene protocols. However, since HHC systems are limited to monitoring hand hygiene, which accounts for only one of a plurality of factors affecting patient care, the return-on-investment (ROI) for these systems has yet to be fully optimized.
Within the healthcare community, it is common for healthcare workers to spend a significant amount of time performing tasks that reduce the amount of time they can allocate to patient care. For example, a healthcare worker caring for a patient in need of an infusion pump may spend several minutes to an hour simply locating an infusion pump, which has a negative impact on patient care because the healthcare worker is unable to spend as much time caring for other patients. In an attempt to provide a solution to this problem, real-time location sensing (RTLS) systems have been developed to monitor the location of tagged assets (i.e. medical equipment, supplies, people) within a facility so healthcare workers can locate assets in a more efficient manner. Nonetheless, similar to HHC systems, the functionality of RTLS systems is limited to asset tracking, which again only accounts for one of a plurality of factors affecting patient care.
In addition to time spent locating assets, healthcare workers also spend a significant amount of time conveying task requests to other departments within a facility. For example, if a healthcare worker notices the trash needs to be changed in a patient's room, then the healthcare worker must notify environmental services either in person or via e-mail, which again reduces the amount of time the healthcare worker can allocate towards patient care. In an attempt to provide a solution to this problem, communications systems (i.e. nurse call systems) have been developed which allow hospital employees to communicate with one another anywhere in the hospital. However, the functionality of these communications systems is limited to messaging capabilities, which again only accounts for one of a plurality of factors affecting patient care.
Therefore, in order to improve patient care, different systems are needed to improve some or all of the many factors affecting patient care. Thus, there is a need for a system that combines the asset tracking capabilities of an RTLS system, the messaging capabilities of a communications system, and the hand hygiene monitoring capabilities of a HHC system.